ACADEMIA
The academic life at universities and colleges, along with their usual esoteric and bourgeois
concerns and pursuits. Also carries the implication that those who live and work there are
divorced from the struggles of the masses in the real world. Of course, there have
been an atypical few who have managed to contribute to the revolutionary struggles of the
people even while holding down positions at universities. But on the whole academia has a
well-deserved bad reputation among serious revolutionary Marxists.
“Who would want to have to talk always with intellectual skunks, with people who study only for the purpose of finding new dead ends in every corner of the world!” —Marx, after being well rid of any prospect of finding a professorship at a university.
ACCUMULATION
[To be added...]
See also:
CAPITAL—ACCUMULATION OF,
PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION
“Actually, however, capitalist society cannot exist without accumulating, for competition compels every capitalist on pain of ruin to expand production.” —Lenin, “On the So-called Market Question” (1893), LCW 1:104.
“ACTUALLY EXISTING SOCIALISM”
This is a phrase that was (and sometimes still is) used by those who recognized that many
countries which called themselves “socialist” (especially the Soviet Union during
its last decades) had severe shortcomings, but who could still not bring themselves to admit
that these countries were not really socialist at all! In other words, this is a phrase
that was used by those who were unable to recognize revisionism and phony socialism when it
stared them in the face. This syndrome was especially common among older Marxists who had
developed emotional attachments to the Soviet Union in its earlier socialist period, and
who could not face the fact that the nature of the Soviet Union had fundamentally changed
from socialism to state capitalism.
ADHIAR
[In India:] A sharecropper. (One of several terms used in India for sharecroppers.)
ADIVASI
A term used in India (often not capitalized) to refer to what is in English often called
a “tribal”, or person of a tribal community, most of whom live in the hilly, forested areas
of a number of states in east-central India. The word Adivasi literally means “old
inhabitant”, and is a general term for any of a variety of ethnic and tribal groups who are
believed by many to be descendants of the earliest inhabitants of what is now India. They
are a substantial minority of the population in India, constituting about 8.2% of the
population, or over 84 million people as of the 2001 census. One major concentration of
Adivasis is in the Jangalmahal region. Because the Adivasis
live closer to nature than most Indian societies, they are particularly vulnerable to the
environmental degradation frequently caused by capitalist corporations. Their lands are
frequently stolen from them for agricultural, mining or industrial development. For these
reasons, many Adivasis have joined the Maoist revolutionary movement in India.
“Tribals are the most marginalized section of Indian society, worse off than even the Dalits (formerly referred to as Untouchables). Around 49.5% of tribals live under the official poverty line, 76.2% are illiterate and almost 30% have no access whatsoever to doctors in clinics. Displaced from their land and discriminated against in the industrial job markets [they] are now fighting to keep their [remaining] land, their only remaining resource.” —Sudha Ramachandran, “India Drives Tribals into Maoist Arms”, Asia Times, Jan. 16, 2010.
ADJUNCT PROFESSOR
A college or university professor who teaches individual courses for a very low salary at one
or more schools but who has no tenure nor health care or other benefits. The fact that ever
larger sections of the higher education faculty are adjunct professors is another blatant
sign of the rapid deteriorization of the educational system in the U.S.
“On April 8, 2013, the New York Times reported that 76 percent
of American university faculty are adjunct professors—an all-time high. Unlike tenured
faculty, whose annual salaries can top $160,000, adjunct professors make an average of
$2,700 per course and receive no health care or other benefits.
“Most adjuncts teach at multiple
universities while still not making enough to stay above the poverty line. Some are on
welfare or homeless. Others depend on charity drives held by their peers. Adjuncts are
generally not allowed to have offices or participate in faculty meetings. When they ask
for a living wage or benefits, they can be fired. Their contingent status allows them
no recourse.” —Sarah Kendzior, “Academia’s Indentured Servants”, on an
online blog, April 11, 2013.
ADJUSTABLE RATE MORTGAGE (ARM)
A loan (or mortgage) to buy real estate (buildings or land) for
which the interest rate is periodically adjusted, often every 6 months. The new rate is
determined in relation to some common short-term interest rate, such as that of the 6-month
U.S. Treasury bill. ARMs are designed to transfer the risk of rising inflation from the
loaner to the borrower. While many ARMs specify a maximum interest rate, it is always much
higher than the initial rate. Moreover, in recent years banks and financial companies have
marketed ARMs which set the initial rate artificially low for a certain limited period as a
come on. The family taking out the loan is then hit with a massive shock of a much higher
monthly interest payment when the first interest “adjustment” is made.
ADLER, Victor (1852-1918)
A leading founder of the Austrian Social Democratic Party (in 1888-89). Later a prominent
revisionist and reformist politician in that country during the period of the
Second International. He took a
centrist position during World War I, advocating “class peace”
and opposing any revolutionary uprisings by the working class.
ADVANCED ACTION
[To be added... ]
See also: VANGUARD ACTION
ADVANCED AND BACKWARD
Divisions among the people based on their relative political understanding and activity.
Sometimes this is simply a bifurcation, or conceptual division of the population into two
categories. On other occasions it is a 3-way division which includes an “intermediate”
section of the population. Of course it is also possible to create even more categories,
such as the “very advanced”, the “somewhat advanced”, the “partially backward”, and the
“extremely backward”. There is no single “absolutely correct way” of doing this; it all
depends on the purpose of the analysis.
In addition, it is quite possible to be
advanced in one respect and backward in another. For example a man might have a high degree
of class consciousness but be quite backward with regard to his attitude toward women and
their unequal treatment and oppression. Or someone might be quite concerned and active with
regard to the issue of the anti-war struggle, but have little interest or concern about the
economic exploitation of the working class. In deciding how to categorize an individual at
some particular time and place it is often necessary to understand which issues are presently
at the forefront of social and political struggle. And of course it is also important to try
to use a person’s strengths, and their advanced characteristics, to help them overcome their
weaknesses or areas of relative backwardness.
“In any society and at any time, there are always two kinds of people and views, the advanced and the backward, that exist as opposites struggling with each other, with the advanced views invariably prevailing over the backward ones...” —Mao, “In Refutation of ‘Uniformity of Public Opinion’” (May 24, 1955), SW 5:172. [Of course we must acknowledge that in the short run the advanced views do not always prevail over the backward ones; it may take a prolonged struggle. —S.H.]
AESOPIAN LANGUAGE
Aesop was an ancient Greek story teller (c. 620-564 BCE) who used fanciful tales (or fables)
to instill various morals or practical conclusions in his readers. That is, he put forward
various ideas in a quite round-about way.
Because of the oppression and censorship by
the ruling bourgeoisie, Marxists and other revolutionaries have also often been forced to put
forward their ideas in “round-about” or euphemistic ways that are frequently referred to as
Aesopian language. For example in Russia in the 1890s, revolutionaries frequently had to
refer to the followers of Marx and Engels as “the disciples” (rather than Marxists)
when writing in the legal press. Similarly, while in prison during the Mussolini fascist
period in Italy, the Communist leader Antonio Gramsci
had to use the circumlocution “modern theory” when he simply meant Marxism. Of course
it is always better to speak plainly and openly when we can!
“This pamphlet was written with an eye to the tsarist censorhip. Hence, I was not only forced to confine myself strictly to an exclusively theoretical, specifically economic analysis of facts, but to formulate the few necessary observations on politics with extreme caution, by hints, in an allegorical language—in that accursed Aesopian language—to which tsarism compelled all revolutionaries to have recourse whenever they took up the pen to write a ‘legal’ work.” —Lenin, from the Preface to his 1917 edition of “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism”, LCW 22:187.
AESTHETIC EVALUATION
Works of art (including works of literature and music) may be evaluated, or judged as to how
good or bad they are, in various ways and from various different perspectives. For example
they may be judged from a moral or political perspective. That is a perfectly
reasonable thing to do (though some people object to it). On the other hand, a common
bourgeois perspective for judging works of art is according to their price, with one work
being considered “better” than another if it can be sold for a higher amount. All of these
are examples of evaluation from non-aesthetic points of view. But of course works of
art may also be evaluated on the basis of their aesthetic merits.
But aesthetic merit itself may vary according
to different points of view, or the different expectations and desires that one person rather
than another seeks in works of art (or for the same person on different occasions). One
person may enjoy a painting if it soothes them; another if it portrays a beautiful person or
a beautiful landscape; a third may seek works that excite their imagination; and so forth.
Thus there are subjective views about aesthetic merit, or about whether some particular
work of art is good or bad.
However, enough people have similar interests
in art that a certain sort of objective aesthetic evaluation of any individual work is
also quite possible. Each work may be viewed as being in one or another
artistic style. Each such style is defined (either
explicitly, or more usually, implicitly) in terms of a list of
stylistic standards. A work of art in some style may
then be evaluated in terms of how well the work meets the standards appropriate to that style.
A good work of art is thus one which does a good job in meeting the standards appropriate to
the style the work is viewed as being in.
A different form of aesthetic evaluation of a
work of art comes from considering the theme of the work, whether it is an important or
powerful theme, for example. But this also connects up with the primary method of objective
aesthetic evaluation, since the importance of the theme in a work is itself something that
may vary in different styles.
From our Marxist-Leninist-Maoist perspective,
an all-round evaluation of a work of art includes its evaluation from both an
aesthetic point of view and from a political point of view.
“I once heard a radio broadcast in which the naturalist and animal
expert Roger Caras remarked: ‘In judging dogs at a dog show each dog is measured against
its own breed standard.’ What an excellent analogy this is to the situation in art, to
the aesthetic evaluation and criticism of art! It would obviously be ridiculous to judge
a Dachshund as better than a St. Bernard ‘because the Dachshund is lower to the ground
like a dog should be’—when in fact this is a standard for Dachshunds but not for St.
Bernards. And it would be just as ridiculous to claim that ‘all waltzes are bad music
because you can’t march to them’, as if this stylistic standard of marches applied to
waltzes as well. Of course nobody would say such a thing about waltzes—it’s too obvious
of a case. But the history of art and art criticism is full of examples of new artistic
works in new styles being absurdly judged by the standards of older styles.” —S.H., from
an unpublished manuscript on aesthetics.
[However, you might ask, if each
dog at a dog show is judged against its own breed standards, how is the “best of show”
dog selected from among all the different breeds? The answer is that the St. Bernard
might be selected as “best of show” because it did a much better job of meeting its
own breed standards than the Dachshund and other dogs did in meeting their
respective breed standards. Of course there may also be some few standards that
do apply to all the breeds, such as healthiness and obedience. —S.H.]
AESTHETIC OBJECT
A work of art. Most of the philosophical discussion around this topic centers on
whether a work of art is a physical object, or some other kind of thing (such as an
“idea”, “illusion”, or even something that “doesn’t really exist at all”!). In the case of a
painting or a statue it seems at first quite reasonable to say that the work of art is a
physical object, either the physical canvas covered with paint or the physical statue made
of bronze, wood, or some other material. But what about a woodblock print that exists in
multiple copies, none of which is more “original” than any of the others? What about a song?
Or a new dance? Are they physical objects? Or a novel? Is it “really” the original manuscript
(even if that differs from the final changed printed version that the author approved, and
which exists in a million equal copies?). Or what about a poem that is recited verbally and
never written down at all? These are the sorts of questions that arise. To cut a long story
short, in my own opinion a work of art of any kind is actually a pattern or
arrangement of some sort that is created by the artist and which can—in theory at
least—be replicated in many individual copies, each of which is a token of that
particular type. (See: types/tokens.)
This, by the way, is not an idealist theory, but rather a materialist theory that
undercuts idealism on this issue. —S.H.
AESTHETIC STANDARDS
See: STYLISTIC STANDARDS
AESTHETICS
Aesthetics is the branch of philosophy concerned with art. In popular usage, as well
as in older bourgeois philosophy, aesthetics is often viewed as being focused on “the
beautiful”, but actually the explication of beauty is just one
of many issues in aesthetics, and not even the most important issue. Some of the many other
questions in the philosophy of art are:
What sort of thing is a work of art? (Is it
a physical object? An abstraction? An “illusion”, as some have claimed? Or what?) (See
AESTHETIC OBJECT entry above.)
What makes a work of art a good work?
Why does art have such an impact on human
beings?
What is the relationship of art to
society?
See also:
Philosophical doggerel on
aesthetics.
AFGHANISTAN — British Imperialist Invasions Of
“From 1838 to 1919, British imperialism launched three wars of
aggression against Afghanistan. When the third war broke out in 1919, Emir Amanullah,
supported by the tribes, rose in resistance to the aggressors. At the time, tribal
uprisings in the frontier areas threatened British imperialist rule in northern
India. In August 1919, Britain was forced to sign an armistice agreement with
Afghanistan and recognize its independence and freedom.
“Stalin cited Afghanistan to
illustrate a point he made in his The Foundations of Leninism in 1924. He
said: ‘The revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions of
imperialist oppression does not necessarily presuppose the existence of proletarian
elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or a republican programme
of the movement, the existence of a democratic basis of the movement.’ He pointed
out: ‘The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of
Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist
views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines
imperialism.’” —Reference note, Peking Review, #48, Nov. 25, 1977, pp.
27-28. [While the point that Stalin makes here is correct, it does not of course
mean that the anti-imperialist struggle can be in safe and steady hands unless it is
led by the revolutionary proletariat, nor is this a matter of a truly
revolutionary struggle with regard to the social classes and rule within a
country like Afghanistan. —S.H.]
AFGHANISTAN — Soviet Social-Imperialist Invasion Of
[To be addeed.]
AFGHANISTAN — U.S. Imperialist Invasion Of
[To be addeed.]
AFRICOM
See: UNIFIED COMBATANT COMMAND
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